'I have brought no one. The one that comes, comes of his own will. Your master will have to call whatever other one he chose.' For a moment the Keeper bowed its head, seeming to listen. 'Yes, that is right. That is as agreed. It is not as it is usually done, nor as they first trained me. But they are the Masters; the Limbreths do I serve, in whatever fashion they say. So we are ready.'
'Are the ones I bargained for ready as well?' Rebeke pressed.
'They approach even now. They have been brought to you with some difficulty, and my Masters would have you appreciate that. Far easier it would have been to destroy them. At first they sought to do violence against my Masters' folk. But they have been shown the light and might of my Masters, and brought to their knees. They shall come as they are bid, and we have made them anxious to use the Gate. All will go as you desire.'
'Might I see them?' It was a polite nothing. Even as she asked, Rebeke sent her Windsinger senses questing through the Gate. Almost immediately she touched Ki's aura, a shape familiar to her and yet subtly changed. She hoped it was but the distortion of the Gate. She tapped Ki's senses, and became aware first of Vandien and then of some other creature, no doubt the 'demented Brurjan' the Limbreths had told her of. She wondered what they would do with it, and then dismissed such speculation as childish. She would not waste her time trying to understand a Limbreth. She drew back into herself and became aware of the Keeper telling her, with polite regrets, that he could not show them to her until the moment when they entered the Gate. She stifled her impatience. She would have Ki and Vandien soon enough. 'Then let us begin. The night of my world wears on, and it were best if we were finished before dawn.'
'Agreed. Bring forward the one, and we shall summon the other.'
Rebeke's heart skipped. She thought she had hardened herself to this moment; nay, she thought she had convinced herself that it was the greatest good for all involved. Her throat constricted and she could not voice the word that would bring her offering forward. She stepped into the shadows and with a touch made her will known.
He stepped lightly out. She looked on his dreaming features beneath the blue Windsinger bond twisted about his brow and cursed whatever demon had inspired her to dress him so. The short black cape was in the style he had always favored, the shirt of pale silken grey, open at the throat to expose his pulse beating warmly. The shirt was the same shade as his eyes, so tranquil and unfocused under her bonding. His face was unlined; he looked for all the world like a boy on the turn of manhood, unroused from a sleep of sweet dreams. She reached to remove her bonding.
'My Masters say that they can take him through the Gate like that. He may give less trouble that way.'
'No!' Rebeke's voice broke harshly. 'No, he goes in knowing what he faces, and who sent him to it.' The Keeper is blind, a small voice within her whispered, and it might be the last kiss you would ever wish to bestow. But she did not. With a twist of her wrist, she slipped her bond from his mind, but left intact the sky rune, wrought in silver and pinned to his cloak, that kept his body's will tied to hers.
'Rebeke?' Dresh glanced about with wondering eyes, but adapted quickly. 'A fine night for a stroll through old Jojorum. I'd take your arm, if I could move mine.'
'The last night we shall share, Dresh. Yet I would have you know, I do not act with malice. I could never be without fear of you, if I set you free. Yet keeping you in a well like a book on a shelf demeans us both, and me not the least.' A smile twitched his lips. 'But why do you bond me? You gave the decision to me. At least I shall exist. That is true?' He addressed this query to the Keeper.
'My Masters have given their word that it shall be so, and they do not lie,' the Keeper intoned ponderously. 'They touch this one, and find him all that they desired. He is acceptable for the exchange.'
'But ...'
'Hush,' Rebeke told him, not harshly, and a touch of her will stilled his lips. She looked away from his face, refusing to meet his eyes again.
The Keeper crouched in the center of the Gate. Rebeke could feel the power whistling through him like wind through a cracked door. He was the channel for it as it flowed through the Gate, and went seeking, seeking, until it found the crystal that could focus it and make it irresistible. The command was as acute as a scream in the night. Rebeke's honed senses winced from it and she was glad it was not addressed to her.
Its target was far away. All waited in silence. Rebeke tried for amusement to pierce the Gate with her own eyes, but with no success. Her other senses confirmed that Ki and Vandien were on the other side, nearer than they had been and hastening toward her. She tried to take comfort in the thought, and to forget the silenced wizard beside her.
She came on a wind from outside the realm of night, traveling from her hall to this Gate by the paths and steeds that only a Windmistress could command. Rebeke's honed senses felt her first as a breeze and then as an anger hanging in the moving air, poorly masking a frantic struggle.
The beast, invisible to untrained eyes, dropped her in the street. Her cowl was awry and her features stiff with hate. Yoleth of the Windsingers did not come with a good will. She was not taken sleeping or drunk or in the madness of grief. But she came. She came by the strength of the calling gem that clung to the skin of her hand and made demands in a stony voice. She advanced, stiff-legged, to the Gate. It was justice, Rebeke told herself. Yoleth's frantic resistance took all her will but availed her nothing, and terror silenced her.
'Are you pleased with the gift your skills wrung from the Limbreths?' Rebeke asked her in a voice as flinty as the gem. 'Come to the place you have prepared for yourself
With a light touch to Dresh's shoulder, Rebeke moved him to her side. They stood like a bridal couple in some blasphemous ceremony. She stroked the soft hair back from Dresh's eyes, and this time she did not resist her impulse. She set her scaled lips cooly to Dresh's smooth cheek in a farewell kiss. She wondered who, if anyone, it comforted. She freed his voice.
His grey eyes met and clung to hers. 'Come with me.' His voice was soft, untinged by any of his skills. 'In that world, perhaps we could be what we once were.'
'There is no world in which we could be together and be at peace. Neither of us was made for that. But I wish you well.' She turned away from him. 'We are ready now,' she told the Keeper.
'As are we. Let them enter.'
A touch of Rebeke's hand and a spur from the gem set them in motion. At the last possible moment, herhand darted out to rip the rune from his cloak. For an instant he struggled, but the pull of the Gate was already upon him, and slowly he entered. 'Upon the other side, you shall feel the touch of my will no longer,' Rebeke said, knowing her words could not carry into the Gate.
She peered into the rosy haze of the Gate, and stiffened as the Brurjan loomed suddenly into view.
The rain had never paused. Although the Limbreths might be willing to show them the Gate, they did not seem to wish their journey to be short or pleasant. They had come out of the last shred of forest into a deeply grassed meadow, and Hollyika had cursed in the savage Brurjan tongue at the sight of a Gate that seemed no more than a red crack in the night. But as they rode toward it, the crack had widened and assumed regular outlines, an arched red portico that beckoned in the night. Hollyika had reined in before it, and given a tug on the lead rope that brought Sigurd up beside her black. Vandien rode up beside Ki. He glanced across at her. Her face was unreadable, the red light giving it a glow that would have seemed wholesome, had not her face been worn to bones.
Vandien stared into the Gate, at the Keeper like and yet unlike the one he had overpowered to come through. His back was to them and Vandien wondered to whom he spoke. The Gate at last, as they had so long sought it, and in his heart there was no joy, for it was parting time. He drew his knife to cut the bonds on Ki's wrists.
'Leave that be!' Hollyika hissed.
'You gave your word,' Vandien reminded her. He did not know enough of Brurjan expressions to read the look on her face.
&nb
sp; 'What is a word given to one you have not shared hot blood with?' Hollyika whispered imperturbably. 'Bite your wagging tongue, and be ready to do all exactly as I say, or your Romni friend pays for you.'
Ki turned to him, and their eyes met. They pleaded, but her lips were dumb, and he did not know what she asked of him. He bowed his head, turning his eyes away from her. The Keeper had put his attention upon them.
'We're coming through,' Hollyika announced before he could speak.
'Yes. Yes,' the Keeper agreed. 'You and the man. All has been prepared, all will balance. Be ready to come forward when I give the signal.' His eyes flickered over Ki with casual interest. 'You may take the animal she bestrides as well. My Masters have no use for it.'
'Neither do we,' Hollyika asserted. The loop of lead rope fell from her hand to the wet ground. Vandien caught his breath. Ki sat still as stone.
'Then enter now,' the Keeper bade them, and turned his sightless head toward the other side. 'As are we,' he answered to some unheard comment. 'Let them enter.'
Hollyika cried out in Brurjan to her horse, and Black sprang forward as if stabbed. The lead rope loop, so showily dropped, jerked tight, and Vandien saw the loose end of it knotted to the pommel of Hollyika's saddle. Sigurd screamed at the rude jerk, but surged forward all the same. Sigmund could ignore Vandien's frantic blows, but not his team mate going without him. He too pushed into the Gate. It met them like a rising tide. Vandien was stifled by the pressure of it. The horses struggled like trapped cattle in a mire. Black was furious, his bit foaming pink, his angry hooves seeking targets. The thick atmosphere frustrated him, changing his killing blows to floundering. Dimly Vandien was aware of a Windsinger going down before him, and rolling, to begin a slow crawl to the Limbreth side of the Gate. Her face was twisted in despair, and he had a half instant in which to wonder what drove her on. A dark-cloaked man with a hauntingly familiar face slipped nimbly through the midst of the scuffle, moving toward the Limbreth side without reluctance. Ki sat astride the plunging Sigurd as if she were glued to him, and Vandien saw the nudge of her knee that pushed him into the gap Hollyika had cleared.
Hollyika had seized the hapless Keeper, who wriggled like a rabbit in her grip. 'I'll balance your damn Gate for you!' she roared in a voice made sodden by the heavy air. With one arm she jerked him from his feet and held him aloft. Impending disaster howled in Vandien's mind. Sigmund beneath him sensed it as well, and with a shouldering shove that pushed his brother through the Gate, he plunged out as if he were coming out of a flooded river fording. But Vandien was not quite clear of the Gate when he felt the red air within it grow suddenly thin. He had a brief image of the Keeper flung back to the Limbreth side, tumbling through the air, to suddenly wink out of the Gate. For a second he heard Hollyika's roar of laughter and saw the flash of her grin.
Then agony crushed her. Blood started from her ears and nose, and the black horse screamed like a woman. The Gate was falling, collapsing in a ruin that was both more and less than stone. The very blackness of the night fell in on itself, making a darkness that no light could pierce. Hollyika's aggressive determination alone was not enough to hold the Gate in existence; but it was barely enough to drive Black on, to spring nearly clear of it before he sank to the ground. Rocks the size of clenched fists rained down upon them. A choking dust of ancient stone filled the air; Vandien couldn't see Ki. He sprang from Sigmund and gripped Hollyika, but even the strength of terror was not enough to drag her free. A rock between the shoulders flattened him onto her and he became her unintentional shield against the debris that followed. For a small eternity the wall fell, and then a silence as heavy covered them with mercy.
'Did they get through?' A voice as loud as a roaring wind was in Vandien's ear and shaking his shoulder as well. He rolled to face it, and then recoiled from the inhuman visage so close to his own. He had seen those blue and white eyes before; the memory didn't reassure him. He opened his lips to speak but coughed rock dust instead.
'Did they get through?' The voice persisted, but Ki's voice, calm as a summer's day, was the one to answer. 'I caught a glimpse of them on the other side, before she threw the Keeper at them. They were clear, and Dresh was farther from the collapse than we were.'
Vandien rolled over slowly. Rebeke straightened up from shaking him, and gave him enough space to come to his feet. Ki just looked at him, without a touch or word, but her sunken eyes were full of regrets.
'So they're through. And the Gate can never be reopened. I suppose I am relieved.' Rebeke's words seemed almost Human; uncertainty gave the tuned instrument of a Windsingers voice a mortal tone this night.
Ki stepped forward, and Vandien watched her eyes roving over the fallen masonry. A whole section of the wall had gone down, exposing a flat expanse of yellow plain, with a few straggly trees. The pile of rubble did not seem enough to account for such a gap.
Belatedly, he recalled Hollyika. The horse was groaning, but she was still. To his surprise he found Rebeke helping him to drag her from the saddle. Relieved of her weight, Black made an attempt to stand. It was pitiable to watch, but he finally levered himself upright, his head drooping down until his nosenearly touched the street. He trembled and sweat began to stain the black coat; but he seemed, miraculously, unhurt.
'Is she alive?' Vandien asked Rebeke as the Windsinger stooped over Hollyika.
'You ask that question about a Brurjan?' Was that a trace of humor in the trained voice? 'They're nearly as hard to kill as Romni. She's stunned, and her hearing will never be the same. But she will live to let you know she feels no debt toward you.'
'I'll never understand why she did it. What did she gain by bringing Ki through?' He stopped at the strange look Rebeke gave him. 'They weren't going to let Ki through, you know. That was their bargain with us. That we could pass the Gate if we left Ki behind.'
'Was it? A great one for bargains, the Limbreths. I hope they think this one has been shrewd, for it is the last one they will make with this world.'
'What was your role in this?' Ki asked suddenly in a flat voice.
'One that need not concern you, for I had no wishes for your well-being. You were a pawn in someone else's gambit, as usual.' The words were slighting, but they held one another's eyes. Rebeke moved toward Ki, to free her still bound wrists.
Hollyika's eyes slid open. With a roar she clapped her hands over her ears and rocked back and forth. Rebeke glanced about the streets. Dawn was not far away; the less evidence left, the better.
'Bring her horse,' she told Vandien sharply. With a strength he found incredible, the slender Windsinger pulled the Brurjan to her feet and began to walk her away.
TWENTY-ONE
Mickle's kitchen was a friendly place of well-worn comfort. In the oldest of Human traditions, it was a separate room of the house, closed off from the bedlam that currently raged through the rest of it. Vandien sat in a darkened corner of it and tried to shut his mind off.
He could hear Jace and Chess down in the cellar as they dragged about beds and chests to make room for Jace to sleep. Rebeke had banished them there, insisting that Mickle kindle enough lights in the rest of the house for her to work by, and commandeering his bed for Hollyika. Hollyika and Mickle were currently engaged in a shouting match over whether she would drink the milk and eat the nourishing stew he had brought her, or whether she really would get up out of the bed and break his neck first. Vandien was betting on Mickle at this point. The old man's determined nagging brought a tiny smile to his face, but it died there.
Ki sat at the table, staring down at her hands. Vandien looked at her, and then away. Mickle had insisted that they all must eat, in his dismay and delight at a houseful of folk coming in at dawn, and had so laden the table that there was scarce room to sit at it. In all the bustle and shouting, Vandien alone had marked how Ki had drifted from room to room in the house, now looking at Hollyika as Rebeke worked over her, now wandering through the kitchen and out into the courtyard, to stand staring at the d
awn breaking over the city. Long had she stared up at the streaking colors of the sky, until Mickle had foundher and, taking her arms, brought her in and put her at the table. Then she had eaten, fruits and bread in tiny bites, as if she had forgotten how to eat. She ignored the slice of meat he forked onto her plate, disdaining even that part of the bread that had soaked up its juices. But wine she had taken, one glass, and then a second, and again, until Mickle wisely and silently left the bottle at her elbow.
Vandien too had eaten, but in quantity more than pleasure. He felt the weight of the food in his stomach. Like a sated wolf, his body now bade him curl up and digest. Sleep beckoned seductively as a time free of thinking. He watched Ki pour another glass of wine, her eyes following the last red drops into her glass. Not by word nor touch nor flicker of eye did she acknowledge him. He sought out the dawn in the courtyard.
A high wall surrounded it, and the grey of early day filled it. A great oven, monument to Mickle's days as a baker, squatted in a corner of the manicured garden. A few cherished fruit trees were already drooping in the early heat. Full sun this day would be scorching.
Vandien sat down beside the door and leaned back against the wall of the house. He tipped his head back so full light fell on his face, shining dimly through his closed eyelids. It was warm on his face, and he willed his mind to blank sleep.
A voice jarred him from it. Rebeke was speaking inside the kitchen. 'I'd take it as a favor if you went far from this place, and spent the rest of your life being inconspicuous.'
'I don't know that I owe you any favors.' Ki's voice was slow, not drunk but softened. 'I recall that you said it was not goodwill toward me that got you involved.'
'No. It wasn't. But it was definitely the ill will of others toward you that started the whole chain of events, so perhaps you owe me for stopping them.'
'Perhaps I owe the Windsingers a lot, favors not among them. Do you know what I am?'
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